The artist Marina Abramović succeeded yesterday in her performance "Seven minutes of collective silence" at the Glastonbury festival in Great Britain.
The pyramid stage at the British Glastonbury festival experienced something almost unprecedented in its history yesterday: total silence, writes the Guardian.
Abramović, invited by the festival organizers, led the audience in what she called a "collaboration" called "Seven minutes of collective silence", to "see how we can feel the positive energy in the entire universe and act as a bulwark against the horrors of war and violence".
Given that it was only announced the day before, there were understandable fears that the audience would be uncooperative and might talk or even shout during the intended silence. But in the end, apart from some very isolated screams and shouts, the only sound moving across the field was the wind blowing through the valley and the distant thumps of the acts from other stages.
Abramović wore a garment in the shape of the CND peace symbol, designed by former Burberry chief designer Riccardo Tisci.
She introduced the work with a speech in which she admitted that she was "scared and honored" by the organizer's invitation: "scared because, as an artist, I have never seen this kind of audience in my entire life. I don't sing, I don't dance. This is a music festival and you all want to have a good time and listen to great music”.
She added in her presentation that the world is in a very bad state.
"There are wars, hunger, protests, murders, violence. But what happens when we look at the bigger picture? Violence begets more violence, murder begets more murder, anger begets more anger, demonstrations begets more demonstrations. Here we are trying to do something different: how to be in the present moment, here and now, and how we can actually give each other unconditional love together”.
She invited visitors to put their hands on the person next to them, close their eyes and get comfortable, then invited festival organizer Emily Avis to strike a gong to start the performance, reports N1.
"I think it was wonderful," said Lucinda, who was at the festival with her friend Lizzie.
"I found out about the performance 30 seconds before it started. I love it. It brightened up my Glastonbury. It was really powerful. Seven minutes went by really fast."
Bonus video:
